


Between Past and Present

by YesBothWays



Series: Bea and Allie (without the tragedy) [3]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7772566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of Bea and Allie's relationship that focuses mainly on Bea's experiences with sex.  Folks were requesting more after the fist two stories, so I am doing two more.  By nature, Bea's story is about rape recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Past and Present

            Bea stared out the windows of medical. Bea was convinced that they kept her overnight for observation only to annoy her. And they were definitely dragging their feet on releasing her today simply to make a point. Nurse Radcliffe had been working hard to ignore Bea since early morning and refused to answer any of her questions. She had finally sent Bea off with Officer Miles, so she could use the showers before any of the units were unlocked. The fact she conceded meant Bea’s diagnosis said she was fine, but Bea was brought straight back to medical. It was nearly lunchtime now.

            Bea wanted to get back to H block. She missed Allie, and she worried about the others. Maxine had finished her last round of chemotherapy over a month ago, and she was getting stronger. But they weren’t the threat they used to be, especially when either she or Boomer were out of commission. She felt overly aware of their vulnerability.

            Bea figured that Governor Bennett would probably have to show up in person to approve Bea’s release from medical. She was already worried about the number of fights Bea had gotten into since Kaz had become Top Dog. This time, one of Juice’s new dogs, named Prim Hershel, had started a fight with Bea in the showers. She was probably just trying to push Bea further down the ladder, and a lot of folks were still trying to win over Kaz by going after Bea. Kaz’s new rules about the panic button and lagging had created a new code of right conduct among the women and let Bea off the hook for the most part – granted it came at the price of Bea’s story being a banner for the legitimacy of Kaz’s righteous set of rules. But Kaz still openly hated Bea. Hersh had gotten the worst of it in the end and wound up in the hospital for some fractures, but she had jumped Bea at the start and bruised her ribs pretty badly. Bea was winded first thing, so it had taken a while for Bea to get control of the fight, and she was pretty banged up because of it. She shouldn’t have been in the showers without anyone else and considered it her own fault.

            Bea could hardly suppress her relief when Governor Bennett appeared around the corner and came down the hall. She wished she could hide how antsy she was to leave. Governor Bennett could potentially use this to her advantage. But since the ordeal with Ferguson, Bea and Governor Bennett were on good terms that weren’t easily shaken. Bea had to admit that she trusted Bennett, at least as far as she could trust any screw.

            Of course, Nurse Radcliffe produced a diagnosis for Bea the moment that Governor Bennett arrived. Her ribs weren’t broken or cracked. Bea practically growled at Nurse Radcliffe in annoyance.

            “Can I go back to my unit now, please?”

            “You can,” Governor Bennett said, leaning against the edge of one of the beds. “But first, do you want to tell me what actually happened? Hershel is fine, by the way.”

            “What happened to Hershel?” Bea asked.

            Governor Bennett pressed at the space between her eyes as if warding off the onset of a stress-induced migraine. She then pressed the pads of her fingers together and held her index fingers to her lips. Bea almost smiled watching Bennett forcibly keep her calm and decide what to say while listening to utter bullshit.  

            “All right,” Governor Bennett said, “I will accept that this is the fourth time in six weeks that you have mysteriously turned up with injuries at the same time as another prisoner. But I am concerned that the severity of the injuries seems to be only increasing.”

            “I wouldn’t worry myself too much if I were you.”

            “Yes, you would. You are my responsibility. What happens to you matters to me. And I do mean that both professionally and personally.”

            “Well, I’m going through a clumsy stage. Maybe it’s a second adolescence.”

            Governor Bennett could not help but laugh in spite of herself. She shook her head at Bea. She was about to give, Bea could already tell.

            “I swear this job will take years off your life.”

            “You should try being on the inside,” Bea said. “Really keeps you young.”

            “In your case I’d say that might be true actually. You look good, Bea. Despite being constantly peppered with bruising.”

            The sincerity in Bennett’s tone took Bea a little off her guard. She found herself having to admit to herself that she actually liked Bennett, despite her being a screw. She even felt a tad bashful at her compliment.

            “Thanks,” Bea said.

            “How long will it take you to be back on top?”

            “Forever and a day. I don’t want Top Dog anymore.”

            Governor Bennett clearly dismissed that as absurd. She humored Bea by not arguing. Her posture and demeanor were professional and guarded again now.

            “How long until you at least regain the respect of the women and these fights stop happening?”

            Bea shrugged.

            “Are you that dismissive of your own well-being?” Governor Bennett asked.

            “You can’t be dead and a lover,” Bea said. “So you can trust I’m working hard to hold down the fort, governor.”

            “Fine. I understand that your mind is on other things. And I will take your word on that.”

            Governor Bennett dismissed Bea with a look. On her way out the door, Bea shot an irritated glance at Nurse Radcliffe, who turned away from her, entirely aloof. Bea sauntered down the hall, happy to be released, ignoring the tenderness in her side.

 

            Bea made her way back to H block. The others chimed up when she rounded the corner. They were lingering in the common space, waiting for the call to lunch.   They were happy to see Bea. She quickly dismissed their worries about her injuries.

            “You don’t look quite seaworthy,” Maxine said.

            “I think she means fuckworthy,” Boomer added.

            Boomer grinned at Sonia at once, delighted with her own wit, and the two of them leaned across the table to share a high-five. Bea just stretched her jaw at the subtle jokes that had started already about how much sex she and Allie had been having. She tried not to let the attention bother her any.

            “That is entirely a matter of personal preference, Boomer,” Bea said peeking into Allie’s room and then her own. “Where’s Allie?”

            “She went to speak with Kaz about something,” Maxine said.

            Bea sat herself down at the table. She couldn’t hide how stiff and sore she really was when she bent in the middle. Liz started some water boiling out of habit, making Bea a cup of tea, even though they would likely leave before it steeped.

            “You’ll have to tell Allie to take it easy on you for a while, then,” Boomer said.

            “I can be quite gentle when asked nicely,” Allie said as she came in.

            She came and put her hands on Bea’s shoulders, and Bea leaned her head into Allie. She couldn’t really listen to the banter for a moment. There was always such a unique quality to Allie’s touch, a graceful, easy gentleness that held no hesitancy. As Allie ran her fingers along Bea’s collarbones and the muscles in her neck, it felt somehow soothing to all the pains still lingering in her body. Bea looked up at Allie’s face and saw a slight cut on her cheekbone with a faint bruise around it.

            “What happened to you?” Bea said.

            “Just a little follow up to your spat,” Allie said.

            “Juice?” Bea asked.

            “We set her straight,” Maxine said, defensively.

            “I don’t want you fighting,” Bea said to Maxine.

            Maxine pressed her lips together, cocked her head a bit, and gave Bea a look. She accentuated her stubborn refusal to listen by placing a hand on one hip. They kept on staring at one another, while Allie laughed a little and waved her hand between them like a peace flag.

            “All right, you two,” Allie said. “No fighting in general, yeah? We’ll all keep our heads low and stay out of trouble. Let Kaz wade through the violence for a while. She actually likes it.”

            The announcement came for lunch. Bea got up stiffly. Allie got her arm gingerly around Bea’s waist. Maxine gently rubbed Bea’s arm as they headed out, glad to have her back. Bea felt herself sigh with relief, happy to be with her family again.

            Allie’s body sitting next to Bea’s felt like a magnet. Bea tried not to focus on it and kept up with the conversation as they ate. Maxine felt that Kaz’s crew was beginning to take real notice of Juice’s crew. They all passed Juice in the lunch line, pissing her off enough that she grumbled about it all the way to her seat. Maxine gave Bea a raised eyebrow at that, and Bea nodded in concession. Juice certainly didn’t like that Kaz opened up use of the panic button anytime someone was at risk not only of permanent injury but also of being raped. She had acted contrite about it, but a threat was on the table now if Juice tried anything and Kaz found out about it. Bea had asked Allie what she thought Kaz would do if she found out that Juice had raped any of the girls. And Allie had said immediately that Kaz would likely kill Juice, as long as she thought she could get away with it.

            Bea had never been happier than she was at that moment to no longer be the Top Dog. Let the others all plot and have at each other. A handful of spats over the instability of changing power dynamics was enough for Bea and her girls to manage right now. They’d more than paid their dues, all of them. A little bit of peace was what they all wanted, far more than they wanted power. Nothing was safe here, but they were safe enough. Safer than they would be if they were still tangled up in the thick of things. Sonia had referred to them more than once as the Switzerland of Wentworth – strong enough to contend for power but invested in using their strength to maintain their own neutrality. Bea wished that something like that could last, but she was still skeptical. Still, it was nice to have some peace for a while.

            The yard was open to them after lunch. They all began to file out together when they finished eating. On an impulse, Bea grabbed Allie’s hand at the start of the hallway to the yard. Allie raised an eyebrow, catching on that Bea meant they should go back to H block instead. She turned immediately to follow Bea. They quickly explained to Maxine, who would tell the others. Bea noticed that Maxine waited against the wall as the others filed out, making sure that no one seemed to take any special interest in Bea and Allie going off alone. Bea felt a fierce love for Maxine flare up in her chest, as she and Allie made their way swiftly to H block.

            Allie pushed open the door to her cell, and the two of them were kissing before the door even managed to click shut. The quiet in H block seemed accentuated by the very faint sound of voices out in the yard. They were kissing hard and barely aware of the room around them. Bea ended up leaning into the edge of the desk. She felt Allie start to pull up her shirt impulsively and catch herself. She leaned back a little to look down and ensure she didn’t hurt Bea’s injuries. But Bea dragged her back into another round of almost fierce kissing, and Allie gave up and held Bea by the hips.

            Bea felt like she was just about to tear Allie’s clothes off. The intensity of the desire she felt held almost an edge of desperation to it. Bea never liked the feeling of being threatened with a lack of control. A wave of anxiety rose up inside of her. Allie felt the shift and leaned back to look at Bea. Allie’s focus seemed divided between her own immense desire and searching Bea to figure out what she was feeling.

            “Jesus, it was only one day,” Bea said.

            “Yeah, but it felt like forever,” Allie said and kissed Bea hard enough that it made Bea groan a little.

            “Sometimes I worry that I’m too much.”

            “How do you mean?” Allie said, already kissing her way down the line of Bea’s neck.

            “Like I’m too sexual or something.”

            “Not for me,” Allie said, her voice heavy and almost distracted. “I was about to steal a key and break in there just to get my hands on you,” Allie said and dragged Bea right up against herself into a strong embrace. A little pain flashed in Bea’s side, but she could barely feel it in the midst of all the pleasure. They kissed for so long that Bea thought Allie was finished speaking, before Allie finally managed to get enough room to say, “I want you all the time.”

            After a bit longer, Allie turned Bea around and got her hands up her shirt. Bea practically sank back into Allie, and Allie kept her steady by leaning into Bea. She had her hands on Bea’s breasts already. Bea finally leaned forward, and Allie pressed against her from behind.

            The bones of Bea’s hips pressed into the edge of the desk. Even though it didn’t hurt, Bea felt herself flinch and brace herself against the wall as if she had expected some pain. Allie’s mouth was on Bea’s neck, but she felt the tension form in Bea’s body. Her hands came around to rub at Bea’s hips, as she drew her a little away from the desk, wondering if she had hurt her accidentally.

            “Sorry,” Allie said.

            Bea shook her head as she turned over her shoulder to kiss Allie more. Their kisses were already intense and passionate. Allie slipped her hand into the waist of Bea’s pants. She brought her hand around to touch her from the back and started to pull up Bea’s shirt. Allie’s hand between her legs felt incredibly, and the heat of her mouth on Bea’s spine seemed connected with this somehow. But the sensations came like a muffled sound, the rhythm fractured into seeming dissonance.

            Bea braced her hands on the desk and leaned onto her arms. Her eyes were tight shut. And she almost shook her head, trying to catch the feel of Allie’s touch on her body. She must have lost the thread of what was actually happening for a minute, because things had changed without her registering the shift.

            Allie was simply holding onto her now, and the momentum had gone out of the passion between them. When she realized this, Bea felt almost desperate to bring it back. She wanted to turn, pull Allie close, and kiss her hard. But her body felt heavy, and her hands where shaking when they came to hold onto the arm Allie had held across her chest.

            In the months she had been with Allie, Bea had begun to be able to actually feel the distinction between being in the present and getting lost in the past. But sometimes things would get jumbled up too fast for her to keep track. She couldn’t hide with Allie. When Bea’s experience changed, Allie would catch this almost right away. And what was happening between them would change.

            Bea could feel Allie rocking the two of them gently. Her forehead was pressed against Bea’s shoulder. She was waiting for Bea to come back to her, and she could feel that Bea was beginning to gather herself. Her hands slipped under Bea’s shirt again and ran over her skin as if she was trying to bring Bea back into a solid form after she had faded away for a moment.

            Now that she could, Bea finally got herself turned around. The two of them leaned in to fully embrace one another. The solidness of Allie’s arms around her made Bea aware of her body trembling.

            “I’m sorry,” Bea said distracted.

            Allie put a hand to the side of Bea’s face and kissed from the line of her jaw to the corner of her mouth. Her kisses were gentler though still lingering and passionate, and she opened Bea’s lips with her own and used her tongue. They kissed until the charge came back into how they touched one another.

            She stepped back, dragged Bea away from the desk gently, and led them to the bed. She started taking off some of their clothes and dropping them beside the corner of the bed. Bea felt herself swept up entirely into something familiar. She knew that she was shaking now from the sheer intensity of this experience.

            Allie sat Bea down on the edge of the bed and knelt down on the pile of clothes. Allie ran her hands back and forth over Bea’s naked thighs that were pressing against Allie’s sides. She got a good look at Bea’s injury but didn’t seem too worried about avoiding touching her there. She ran her hands along the sides of Bea’s neck, running her fingers into her hair. She tugged gently to lean Bea’s head back and kissed along her exposed throat. Bea became so distracted by this, she let too much tension go into her side, and put a hand down hard on the bed to take her weight. She shifted forward again as Allie kissed her way down to her breasts.

            With her arms around Allie, her hands pressed into Allie’s hair, and her legs squeezing hard at Allie’s sides, Bea felt anchored in the moment, like she couldn’t possibly get lost. Allie worked Bea’s breasts with her hands and her mouth. She ran her hands over Bea’s back and pulled her in even closer. A slight sway between them felt as if it drew Bea even more into a trance where she could hardly even remember ever being scared of sex. When she finally felt that Bea had had enough, Allie leaned back to kiss Bea, as she always did right before she went down on her. And Bea felt herself shake vividly as she pulled Allie into a prolonged kiss, holding her hard at the back of the neck with both hands.

            A moment of feeling more conscious of herself and what was happening between them left Bea with a feeling of astonishment at how open she felt with Allie without feeling even a flicker of fear. There was something distinct about the way she and Allie were making love to one another now, something that had no precedent or similarity in Bea’s past experiences or even what she could imagine about sex before she came to this part of her life. She felt as if together they had somehow carved out a space that was untouched by anything else.

            They had been alone in the yard one day when Allie suddenly leaned her head into Bea’s chest. She came back to look at Bea’s face, her eyes heavy, and a little smile on her lips. She worked her mouth before speaking.

            “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Allie said.

            “Oh, yeah?” Bea said, already bashful, knowing from her expression that that whatever Allie said would be about sex and wondering why she would want to ask her out here in the yard instead of when they were alone in one of their rooms.  

            “Do you think you would want me to go down on you sometime?” Allie asked.

            Bea shifted, suddenly aware of the discomfort of the concrete beneath her and the brick wall at her back. Allie’s eyes moved over Bea, taking all this in. She didn’t say anything but waited for Bea’s response.

            “Yeah,” Bea said.

            A flicker of surprise moved across Allie’s face. Bea got one foot on the ground and held onto her knee. She was filled now with a nervous energy that held the charge of unformed desires and fears. She tried to hold Allie’s look at least.

            “Is that something you want to do?” Bea said.

            Allie made a kind of unwilled grin. She looked over Bea again and gritted her teeth slightly. She shifted to lean into her arm and held Bea’s look for a minute.

            “I’m a bit nervous to admit how much, actually,” Allie said.

            “Why nervous?”

            “’Cause I don’t want to make you nervous,” Allie explained swiftly.

            Bea rocked a bit and grinned at Allie. She shook her head.

            “You don’t make me nervous.”

            “How do you feel, then?”

            “Sex makes me nervous," Bea clarified. "I don’t know what I’m doing.”

            “You want to try it sometime, though?”

            “Yeah. Sure.”

            “Sure is, ‘I am sure I want to try it,’ and not, ‘Sure, I’ll go along with something I don’t want,’ right?”

            “Yes,” Bea said, laughing a little. “Sorry I can’t be more…”

            She made a gesture with her hand but couldn’t find the word. She meant something like direct or steady. She felt a little overwhelmed with self-consciousness, but Allie seemed to have gotten the answer she needed.

            “All right. We’ll try it sometime. I’ll do it just a little bit at first,” Allie said. “Then you can tell me if you liked it later on, and if you want, we can try it more.”

            Bea laughed at that. She leaned in to Allie’s neck and looped an arm under her shoulder. She held her close for a moment, not worried about being observed out in the yard.

            “Why are you so sweet to me?” Bea said.

            “I’m trying to seduce you, obviously,” Allie joked.

            Allie had made it really clear what she was doing the first time she went down on Bea. She pulled Bea to the edge of the bed and knelt down on the ground in front of her. She kept it slow.   She kissed from Bea’s knee all the way up the inside of her thigh and ran her hand along the other one. Bea could feel Allie shaking, and, for a perplexed moment, she thought maybe Allie was nervous. Allie came up to kiss her then, and Bea could feel that Allie was just trying to keep herself calm and controlled, and the desire pent up in her body was so strong, she was shaking physically. Bea held and kissed Allie hard, as if to try and keep her together.

            Bea could remember vividly how Allie trailed down her body. Bea felt oddly sensitized and acutely aware of every place their bodies were touching. She felt her cheeks and her chest flush as Allie opened her up with her fingers and got a look at her body. She felt Allie’s mouth on her, her lips and tongue moving so softly that the intense pleasure the touch sent shooting through Bea and up her spine seemed uncanny. She grew a bit firmer and sucked the way she would have on Bea’s bottom lip. In response, Bea gave a groan, lost her breath, sank back, and nearly fell onto her elbows.

            The way Allie shook, when she leaned back with a clear force of her own will took over Bea’s entire focus. Allie got them up into the bed. She seemed almost desperate to distract herself with other ways of making love. Bea pulled Allie into an embrace and guided her along. Even as they kissed and moved together, Bea found herself realizing, with Allie still shaking in her arms, that she had been wrong in imagining that Allie wanted to go down on her only for Bea. The whole concept of pleasure moving only one way between the two of them could never really fit. It was clear that Allie was easily as affected by those brief moments as Bea had been herself. Bea’s old concepts of sex didn’t fit with what happened between the two of them.

            In the days and weeks that followed, Bea got to fully sink into this realization from both sides of giving and receiving. So now, when Allie went down on her, it didn’t feel like they were having two separate experiences. She could feel that Allie was right there with her. When she lay back on the mattress and her back arched, Allie’s hands on her stomach could feel this. And she was not surprised when Allie made a soft groan along with the sounds she made.

            Bea found herself on the edge of being overcome almost right away.

            “Oh my God,” Bea said. “I’m not gonna’ last.”

            Allie stopped for a moment. She had her fingers interlaced with Bea’s and was squeezing her hands. She kissed Bea’s thigh.

            “That’s all right. We’ve got all day,” Allie said.

            Bea laughed. This was true. They had spent practically all day in bed before. Everyone else in H block just casually pretended not to notice. Maxine would smile a lot, and Boomer would sometimes leave the room laughing. But everyone was looking out for the two of them. Bea had hidden all her boyfriends and even her engagement from her parents, so she was still figuring out what it meant to have her current relationship embraced by everyone around her.

            Bea let herself lay back and stop thinking. Her stomach wanted to tense when she started to build up into an orgasm, and she had to lean towards her good side to keep it from hurting her ribs on the other. She had the fleeting thought that she might regret all this exertion later, but it couldn’t hold much weight. Her voice broke out in a series of soft cries that always sounded surprisingly feminine when she heard them.

            After a minute, Bea felt Allie getting up to climb into the bed with her. Bea was careful not to further hurt her side, as she got herself turned the right way in the bed and moved up. She lay on her side with her face in close to Allie, resting for a minute. Allie was lying on her back, but she had turned her face towards Bea.

            Allie came up onto her elbows and looked over at Bea. Her eyes trailed over Bea’s body first. Then she got a good look at her expression.

            “Are you really worried that you’re too much for me?” Allie asked, as if she had just remembered this.

            Bea closed her eyes. She didn’t have to nod. Allie could see that the worry had been genuine.

            “It seems unfair that you would go from worrying that you weren’t sexual enough to worrying that you’re too sexual. Isn’t there any middle ground in between there that you could stand on?”

            Bea knew Allie was right. She did have both worries. She tried to weigh those two self-concepts against one another in her mind. She wasn’t sure what she was being measured against in either case. She never really knew what to think about sex, or at least what to think about herself in relation to sex.

            “I’m not sure exactly what’s happened,” Bea said.

            “Well, stop worrying, if you can,” Allie said.

            “Okay,” Bea responded, trying not to grin, as she leaned forward a bit to meet Allie as she leaned down to kiss her.


End file.
